Squash Fries

The other day, I noticed that I had 2 butternut squash sitting in my kitchen, waiting to be cooked. The first I turned into butternut squash soup.

I wanted to be a bit more creative with the second one, so I figured I’d make fries out of them. The boys must have eaten an entire 3 pound squash worth of oven fries. They chowed on them all afternoon and then asked for more. I ate quite a few myself, to me they were as sweet as candy.

Comments

Elana, I don’t know how I was able to get along before your website. My four and two year old are eating so healthy and loving it!!
thank you so much!
So dar I have cooked 14 days straight using your site and its been a blast!

We made these Squash Fries and Sweet Potato fries for dinner on New Years Eve. Yum! We seasoned each batch different- one with Parmesan cheese, just sea salt, another with cumin & oregano & coriander. Thanks again for awaking my creativity which had become dormant this last year!

Ok, I’m just catching on to this way of cooking, but everything I’ve tried thus far has been AWESOME!!! Today, I thought I would try some “french fries” since that is one of my favorite cheat foods. Elana, the idea of using butternut squash, I thought would be ok! Oh my goodness, they are fabulous! Thank you again for proving me wrong! Love your site and your book! :-)

I made some squash fries using kabocha, a japanese pumpkin found at ethnic food stores. It really is, IMHO, the tastiest squash. In addition to sea salt, i also added chili pepper, cumin, garlic powder and paprika to my fries. I baked them in the oven at 425 for 45 minutes which was way too long. I am trying them again this morning. I suspect 425 for 20-30 minutes will be perfect.

I avoid aluminum as much as possible. I store leftovers in glass jars and cover pies, tarts, crisps and other baked goods with another dish of the same size (as needed) when cooking in the oven, to avoid using aluminum foil. I don’t care what the research says, the stuff scares me. My husband thought I was crazy for a long time too –takes them some years to come around to our perspective, ya know?

I wish I knew what brand my baking sheets are because I love them. I bought them in NYC many years ago and can’t even recall where I purchased them.

Thanks Elana!
The hubby thinks I’m paranoid but aluminum foil heating to such a high temperature directly onto our food doesn’t seem safe in my mind. Plastic does it, why should foil be different? I’ll just tell my hub the charcoaled bits add to the flavor :-D
I just searched for our baking sheets online because the thought hadn’t crossed my mind what they were made of (they were a wedding gift). It looks like they are “aluminized steel”! Oh dear. I think this means there is a layer of aluminum on top! Thank you for pointing that out. Now my husband is really going to think I’m crazy!! Any brand recommendation for what I should replace them with?

I use stainless steel baking sheets and do not use tinfoil. The sheets do tend to get some marks on them around the edges which I scrub off every few days as best I can (with limited success). There are no marks in the center. By the way, when I make cookies or baked items I use unbleached parchment paper to line the sheets, which I find keeps them in good condition; I do not do this for the squash fries however.

To anyone wondering if they should try these- I must give a definite answer of YES!!
I had been making zucchini fries for some time and thought those were good, it had never occurred to me to try a butternut squash, and holy moly!! They are delicious (much, much, tastier than zucchini)! I totally agree they are as sweet as candy.

Elana- do your baking sheets have burn/charcoaled marks from squash fries and such on them? I used to cover my baking sheets with foil but have recently decided it’s most likely leaching into the food so started baking without. It bothers my husband (he taught me the foil trick in the first place) because there are charcoaled marks all over our baking sheets now even after smothering food in oil. I tried scrubbing them but they won’t go away!

I was simply surprised at how delicious this recipe was. Thank you Elena for your website. Its helping me alot with feeding my 2 1/2 year old who was diagnosed with PDD-NOS and is now on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

Alchemille -So nice to hear from you and I hope you are well. Yes, there is always a way to do it differently! I used my oven on the “broil” setting for this recipe, there is no temperature on that setting –it just says “broil.” Unfortunately, I didn’t time any of the batches, just kept an eye (and nose) on them to see and smell when they were done. It’s pretty easy and you can cook them to your desired doneness, they get quite sweet and caramelized. If you make them, let me know how they turn out.

Stephanie -I think the squash fries are even sweeter than the sweet potato fries I used to eat long ago.

I’m a big fan of oven roasted vegetables. I’ll use any root veggie, pumpkin and/or squash I have handy ;).
I haven’t had fries for a very long time and your recipe sounds like a nice twist from the traditional (and somewhat boring + somewhat hard to digest) potato.
I keep on explaining to family and friends that when you can’t cook/eat “traditional” foods, you can always do it differently. I find that different way to be more tasty, creative, stimulating and nourishing anyway…
Thank you for the great posts and I’m really looking forward to your cookbook ;).

I’ve made these before…though I usually just use extra virgin olive oil and bake them around 400ºF (or 375º in the toaster oven for a snack-sized portion). They rock! What’s the effect/reasoning of using both kinds of oils?

Carrot fries, made from young/fresh Farmer’s Market Carrots, prepared the same away, but baked at 475ºF (so they caramelize) are unbelievably good too. I learned this carrot fry technique from Brendon of the blog Something in Season, which no longer exists.

Look how many wonderful recipes you have posted in the last weeks, thank you so much! The pics are mouthwatering, AGAIN!
I just got back from a holiday in Switserland (which was lovely and I felt like being right into “the sound of music”), but caught a crazy vibe when back home and now I feel as though I have a large bout of flu, so in need of a lot of bed rest and a small amount of healthy food. In the meantime, I sometimes read the paper, my email or preferably your recipes on my macbook in bed… Gosh I cannot wait to get in the kitchen!!
Great to read your thanksgiving was lovely. We don’t celebrate thanksgiving here, but we should.
I am trying to make it a regular habit.
Have a lovely weekend and I hope to be able to share some of my experiences with your recipes soon!
xox Christianne

I have been making these for a few weeks. I was trying to figure out a way to get my ASD son to eat pumpkin (in Australia they are all just called pumpkins no matter what the variety). I thought I would try making them like chips (fries). My son is a bit obsessed with numbers so I used my number cookie cutters and made number chips. I huge hit!

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